


Sins and Sorrows

by starlightwalking



Series: Fëanorian Redemption [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (mostly), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Finwëan Ladies Week 2019, Includes Background Daemags, OC is Maglor's Wife, POV Original Character, bisexual maglor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 19:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20980976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: It wasn't that she hadn't changed in their millenia apart, but the man who stood before had changed so much she scarcely recognized him.





	Sins and Sorrows

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Regarding the Rearing of a Successful Half-elf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19740004) by [elvntari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elvntari/pseuds/elvntari). 

> Compliant with my fic ATATYA, though you don’t need to have read that fic to understand this one. Some brief context: After the Fëanorians are re-embodied (minus Maglor, who's still wandering around Middle-earth), Maedhros and Fingon finally get married, and Oromë delivers Maglor back to Valinor as a surprise wedding gift. Daeron runs up to greet him, but his wife, [Ezellë](https://arofili.tumblr.com/post/187842965963/finweanladiesweek-day-six-textual), runs away...
> 
> This fic deals mostly with the relationship between Maglor and his wife, but there is also some background/plot-relevant Daemags. Be warned: this story is not kind to Maglor, especially at first.
> 
> I wrote this for Finwean Ladies Week, which was a month ago (me? late to my own event? it's more likely than you'd think) ...but I finally finished it and I'm so glad I did! Enjoy!

It wasn't that she hadn't changed in their millenia apart. Ezellë had grown and faltered, found and lost pieces of her heart, shaped herself into someone new—of course she had. But she had accomplished it all on her _own_, without him, and he had stayed static in her mind.

The man who stood before her was nothing like the man she had married. He had changed so _much_, so much she scarcely recognized him.

The ages had not been kind to Makalaurë. His brothers had all perished and been re-embodied, but not so he. He still wore the scars and griefs of his mournful life, and the dimmed light of his fëa was obscured beneath a film of weariness where it had once shone bright and clear in his laugh-lined eyes.

He looked better now than he had upon his arrival, windswept and trembling. He'd trimmed his hair (it was far shorter than it had been at their parting) and shaved the ghost of a beard upon his chin (its shadow was still visible, and despite herself she couldn't help but imagine what it felt like to kiss him with stubble).

But the change that struck her most was his hands. They were calloused and worn, the nails bitten past the quick, skin dry and cracked. A lifetime ago, his hands had been beautiful, carefully looked-after, soft and gentle as he caressed either the strings of his harp or the body of his wife. Now they looked as if they belonged to another man.

And perhaps they did; or, at least, this man belonged to someone other than her. Makalaurë wore three bands upon his ring finger, and only one she recognized. For all she had heard of his dreadful deeds and denounced them time and time again, it still broke her to think that he had bound himself to someone other than herself. More than one someone, if the glittering rings meant what she thought they did.

After the way he had spoken so bitterly of Indis, echoing the words of his father, he'd found another bedmate to replace her. Had she not been good enough for him?

Of course not, was the obvious answer. If she had, she would have followed him into exile. But that was the answer to the wrong question. The right one was: Had _he_ been good enough for _her_?

She didn't know. Perhaps he had been, once. In her bitterest moments, she'd found foreshadowing of his evils from their very first days together; in her loneliest, she'd all but forgiven him. Thousands of years had passed, and she found different answers every time she asked, but now that he stood before her in the flesh, she couldn't remember a single one.

"So," she said, her voice more strained than she wished. "So," she tried again, stronger this time, "you've come back."

Makalaurë cast down his eyes, nodding. He didn't speak; she could feel the shame radiating from his fëa. It didn't matter that their marriage bond had been closed for countless centuries, she still knew his spirit better than anyone else's...though by the rings on his fingers, the same no longer held true for him.

She wasn't proud of having run from him, back on the moonlit shores of Alqualondë. But she hadn't been ready for her husband's sudden return to Aman. She had prepared herself for his brother's wedding, a complicated event in its own right, and she was not as brave as was his other lover. Daeron the minstrel hadn't had the constitution to attend the ceremony, lurking instead just outside the venue, but he hadn't thought twice when it came to Makalaurë.

Ezellë had. Perhaps it was _because_ of Daeron that she fled: Makalaurë had _him_ to embrace, so what need had he of her? She had known of his faithlessness for centuries, ever since Daeron arrived in Valinórë, but seeing the proof it on her husband's face, and now upon his fingers... Why had he bothered to come?

"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" she demanded after a stretch of silence. This time he shook his head. Ha! here he was, on _her_ doorstep, unable to even speak. Well, Ezellë had never had _that_ problem. She had some words for him, and she'd had them for a long, long time.

"Then why have you come? To hear me speak the words you know I've already written? To hear all my grievances against you?" She laughed bitterly. "Very well, you shall have your wish, Kanafinwë Makalaurë."

At the sound of his names he flinched, ever so slightly. His hair fell into his eyes, but he did not blink, nor did the gloom of his stare soften. Ezellë was glad to know he still felt the pain of ages past. She wanted to see him guilty, see him horrified, see him humiliated, see him at his very worst. Only then could she the truth of his heart.

"You first broke my heart at the swearing of your horrific Oath, against which I could not dissuade you," she growled. "You abandoned your wife, refusing to give her any sense of closure. You swore you would return, but she—" her voice faltered, but she pressed on— "I knew you could not. I knew you _would _not, even granted amnesty. And you knew this, also. You lied to me, Makalaurë, after all the vows we swore. Your new Oath was of greater import than even your _wife_."

She watched the weight of his deeds settle upon him. He slouched, casting down his eyes at last. A vicious triumph welled up within her—good. He deserved to feel this guilt.

"You slew the Teleri at Alqualondë," she spat. "You waded in their blood, and stole their ships. And this was not the only Kinslaying where you sullied your hands with elvish blood! Twice more you attacked your kin, as if the horrors of the first murders meant nothing to you!"

Makalaurë flinched again. His fingers twitched involuntarily, as if he held an invisible blade within his grasp, and though his knobbled hands were clean, Ezellë almost thought she could see ancient stains of blood upon his palms.

"You burned those precious boats which you murdered to possess." Ezellë clenched her jaw. "Your brothers were family to me, Kano! Despite all else he did, it is some small comfort to know Nelyo stood aside. But whatever relief that is pales in comparison to what you did to your youngest brother. He was in one of those boats! Did you not know? Or did you light the sails with your torch despite your knowledge?" She bit her lip until it nearly bled. "I do not know which is worse. It is a miracle poor Telvo survived. No thanks to _you_."

She went on, cursing him for reaffirming the Oath upon his father's death, for his cowardice and failure to save his elder brother from the Enemy's dungeons. "I never thought you craven," she growled, "but you are truly faithless to the family you left me for. Or was it the Oath that drove you thence? But the Oath would not have guided your leadership in Nelyo's absence—your inability to treat with Ñolofinwë shows a weakness I didn't know hid within you."

He opened his mouth, then, as if to protest, but she was not finished. "At least you regained your honor upon Nelyo's return," she sniffed. "The only good decision any of your brothers made was handing the crown to Ñolofinwë, and you stood by Nelyo in that. And perhaps your deeds against the Enemy redeemed you in some small way, even if you lost your territory as soon as some pitiful worm learned how to breathe fire! You were lucky Nelyo took pity on you, then, even though you did not lend him your aid in his time of need."

Using Nelyafinwë against him was perhaps too harsh, she realized with a pang. In the century since the Fëanárions' rebirth, she had come to terms with his deeds, and she knew Nelyo loved Kano deeply and held nothing against him. Truly, it was wise not to attempt his rescue; Findekáno had been mad and madly fortunate, blinded by love where Kano had been wise.

"You lost a dreadful battle because you trusted treacherous mortals," Ezellë continued, switching tracks. "At least you slew the traitors' leader yourself, but one valiant deed does not outweigh a ship's load of evils. Kinslaying, again, Kano? Twice in a row? Were you not weary of carrying the blood of innocents within your fëa? I can feel it now, that weight upon your soul. At least your brothers were purified in Mandos."

Makalaurë clutched his chest, his face wet with tears. The light in his eyes bled into the droplets, tinged with red. His fëa was stained, nearly as unrecognizable as his hands.

"You kidnapped innocent children and dragged them through a vicious war," she hissed. "You _stole_ from the Ainur! You slew the guards of those accursed gems! And as soon as you held them in your hands, you discovered what I had told you from the beginning—that your Oath carried the seeds of its own destruction. That it was in vain, and all your evils and sufferings were for _nothing_."

Any vicious joy she had felt before soured into hatred, not for him but for—for everything. Though it hurt her own spirit to continue, she was not done.

"You failed to save your brother from death at his own hands," she said, gritting her teeth and speaking through her tears. "You cast aside the _thing_ for which you slaughtered innocents. You—you fucked off to nowhere! For four ages! You left the mess you made for others to clean up! And—" Her heart broke again, the way it had when she'd heard the truth.

"And you broke our marriage vows," she cried, fighting to hold back her tears. "You swore you would love me, and me only—even as you left me, you promised to remember me. And yet you found another—and not only one other." She pointed a shaking finger to his guilty hands, to those unfamiliar rings. "To _two _others you found worthy of marriage—and I shudder to think who else you took to your bed. Did you think of me, when you forfeited any bond with my heart? Did you think of me as she cried out in her ecstasy, or when _he_, your Sinda minstrel, gave you such pleasure as I once did?"

Ezellë spat upon the ground. "I wish I had never done so," she said hoarsely. "No—that is not true. I wish only that you could understand the pain I felt when I first saw your pretty Maiahíni husband and he would not meet my eyes."

Makalaurë fumbled at his fingers, struggling to rid himself of the damning rings, but Ezellë stopped him with a hiss: "_No_. You cannot cast off this shame, Kano."

Had it been worth it, to recount his every sin against her? Grief and anger swirled within her belly like sour wine. She could feel his pain, also, but that was the pain of ages. He had lived with his guilt for many ages, and she felt it now anew.

Ezellë wept now, unable to halt her sorrow any longer. She shook with every heaving sob, the salt of her blood and tears mingling bitterly in her mouth. Makalaurë stepped forward, as if to comfort her, but she stumbled backward, pushing him away. His embrace would only poison her further.

"But that is what _you_ did," she cried. "What did _I_ do in your long absence, Makalaurë? The tapestries and histories omit the deeds of your forgotten wives, but we linger on without you."

He stepped back, steeling himself for further beratement. Ezellë wiped her eyes and breathed deeply before continuing.

"Quildalótië and I had each other, at least," she rasped. "We were heartbroken that our husbands left us. Curvo was so cruel to her at the end—and you so pitifully false. We lived together for the first century. All we had was each other—and your mother, of course. She was one of us, also; the forsaken women of foolish heroes."

She clenched an ink-stained fist. "And I wrote. I am Tecnyarindë, the writer, but never in all my years with you did I have so many words within me. I wrote essays of pain, volumes of hatred, libraries of bitterness. I published none of that drivel, but once I had my wits about me, I did not keep my stories to myself." She curled her lip. "My books are in every library in Eldamar. I kept your name, Tecnyarindë Fëanáriel, wife of Kanafinwë. My denouncements were more damning that way."

She saw the pain in his eyes and pressed forward: that was not all. "I wrote more, as the ages passed and the fires of my fury cooled. I wrote to political journals, to kings and lords, to the Valar themselves. I helped repair the Noldor from the damages you left. I broke bread with the Teleri, prostrated myself before them for my Kinslaying husband's sake. It was humiliating, but less so when I thought of you doing the same. I did what I needed to do."

Ezellë took a deep breath. "I retired from politics in the Third Age. I went back to my own quiet life, drafting new stories that had nothing to do with you. But then, a century ago...your brothers returned from Mandos."

She shook her head. "You know what happened then. I'm sure your brothers have told you everything. If it was a torment for them to live without you, it was worse for Quilla and I. We had moved on, and now our old hurts were dug back up!" She laughed bitterly.

"I moved back in with her," she continued. "She needed me, now that Curvo was trying to win her back. I helped her melt down her ring. I wrote her a speech of rejection. I ought to have saved it for you, Makalaurë. It was my hatred bleeding into her words. What I still had left of it, that is."

Makalaurë looked at her then, falling to his knees. He still said nothing, and the haunted look in his eyes only made Ezellë feel worse.

"Do you know why I let you come here, Makalaurë?" she asked softly. "Do you know why I am even speaking to you? The only reason I'm giving you half a chance, instead of turning you away like Quilla did Curvo?"

He shook his head, but did not blink.

Ezellë sighed, the fury draining from her. "It was one person—not Nelyo. Not Quilla. Not your mother. It was Elrond Peredhel."

A thousand pains flashed from him then, his fëa sparking so ferociously that Ezellë flinched and stepped backward. At last, Makalaurë spoke, his voice low and ragged: "I should leave."

Ezellë stared at him, stunned. "What do you mean you should _leave_?" she demanded. "I am not finished, Kanafinwë!"

He stood then, turning away from her. "I have had ages to despise myself for everything you have said," he murmured. "Thousands and thousands of years to wallow in guilt and misery. You are right: I have hurt you beyond repair. I am unforgivable. But I cannot—I cannot bear to hear you speak of him. That was the worst thing of all."

She looked at him in wonder, reaching out despite herself to grasp his hand. His skin was rough and dry, and it was a miracle she didn't break into pieces at the feeling of her husband's hand in her own after so very long, but she could not let him leave just yet.

"No," she whispered, astonished she needed to tell him at all, "no—Kano, it was the best."

He looked back at her with eyes so wide and shocked that her heart nearly broke again. "Ezellë?" he asked in a fragile whisper, speaking her name for the first time.

"You took that boy and his brother and you repented," she said through a haze of tears. "You truly did. You raised them, nurtured them, protected them, _loved _them. You faced your evils and made up for them as best you could."

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he shook his head, drawing away from her in his confusion.

"Elrond forgave you," she said. "He loved you. He loves you still. When he came to the shores of Valinor he sought me out. He told me everything you'd done—everything I've just told you. But in his words it sounded different."

She closed her eyes for a moment, returning to the memory. "I'd heard the stories already," she continued, "from those you wronged and those who wronged alongside you. But Elrond—he was different. I thought, like you said, that you had hurt him most of all, but he spoke of you like he was telling the story of a wayward man he loved, who found his goodness in the end. And in his words I found the truth that evaded me for so long."

"He..." Makalaurë shook where he stood, looking as if the slightest breeze could knock him over. Ezellë yearned to reach for him and hold him tight, but she thought he might fade away if she tried.

"You raised two children, Kano." She sighed, ever amazed by the fact. "Without me. We never wanted any; I still have no desire for children of my own. But I can't help but love you for yours. You never planned to be a father, and yet you took them anyway, loved them, became that for them."

She smiled. "Of course I did the same when Elrond found me. I adopted him into my heart—it doesn't matter that he's achieved his own greatness, that he's a father of his own children. I have become as much his mother as you were his father."

"I..." Makalaurë seemed unable to find the words. "You..."

"Hush," she said, stepping closer. She laid a hand on his chest, looking up into his eyes with a tenderness that astonished even herself. "I love you for that, Makalaurë. Of course I do—how can I not? I'm still—-I'm still your wife. Your Ezellë. And you're still my husband, despite everything."

They were so close. His presence was overwhelming; he smelled of the sea and his hands were rough, but she could feel the bleeding warmth of his fëa and beneath all the sins and sorrow she felt his love. She opened her bond again and the fire of his spirit engulfed her as it had on their wedding day—but this time she was prepared. This time she knew exactly what she was doing.

She kissed him, then, soft and chaste, and stood back. Dizzy with emotion, overwhelmed by his warmth, Ezellë found some sense of satisfaction in the absolute bewilderment that radiated from her husband.

She reached into her pocket and found the secret shame she'd kept with her all this time. In her open palm she held his wedding ring, the one she'd demanded from him the night he left. She'd sworn never to wear it, had even thrown it into the sea after hearing of his loss of the Silmaril—but she'd dived right back in to fish it out. Her promise had been to herself alone, and she could live with breaking it.

Ezellë jutted out her chin, trying to appear firm despite her trembling arm. "You can have it back, if you want it," she proclaimed. It was a peace offering—no, more than that. It was a second chance.

Makalaurë looked at her. "You know I have two more," he rasped. He showed her his hand, and the damning rings upon it. "One—one is my mother's. I'm holding on to it for her. The other...you know him. He still holds a part of my heart; I cannot change that if I wanted to. But this..."

He slipped her ring off his finger. The emerald upon it gleamed in the sun's light, as bright and green as her eyes. At least, those had been his words when he first offered it to her all those æons ago.

"But I loved you first," he said, "and I love you forever. Ezellë, you offer me your heart again, but I don't know if I deserve it. I—" He shivered. "I feel your fëa. I feel your hurts, and it hurts me again to know I am their source. I fear I will hurt you again if I take back your ring, for I will not rid myself of Daeron's. My love for you does not mean you must keep yourself bound to me."

Ezellë stood firm, her hand still outstretched. She'd known he would say something melodramatic like that; it was his way. He was a poet, a lyricist. She was, too, in her own way—it was what had drawn them together in the first place.

Makalaurë stared at the ring in her palm. "You tempt me, my love," he murmured. "I want—I want you. By the stars, Ezellë, I've always wanted you, even when I found myself in the arms of others. It was wrong, I knew it then and I knew it now, but it was also right in some way. I love you, but I love Daeron also. He was the one who came to me when I returned, while you fled. I know—I know why you did so, of course I do, but...I cannot leave him, even for you."

She scowled, and some sort of pained relief flashed across his face. "Do not make my choices for me," she warned. "That was your problem all those years ago, assuming my heart's desire! Well. I did not go with you to Endórë, and my mind is still my own."

He fell to his knees, wringing his hands. Her ring fell into the grass, and he scrambled to pick it back up. "Ezellë, speak to me," he begged. "I don't know what to say. I don't know what you want. I feel your spirit, but I don't understand it. Maybe I never did."

Ezellë heaved a sigh. He could be so _silly_ sometimes, even with the most serious of things!

"Kanafinwë Makalaurë." Her voice was firm; her mind certain. "I have met your husband. I have wasted endless hours despairing that you forsook me. I know everything you speak—you've said it before, and so has he. But there is nothing that will change my mind once I make a decision."

"There were others, not just him," Makalaurë said. He sounded almost desperate to justify a hatred she had proved empty, giving her a thousand reasons to deny him despite her vows. "You were right, I am unfaithful. I bound myself to him, but there were others before—others after, even! I still love them, Ezellë, even the ones who have passed on—not just into the Halls, but beyond _everything_."

She stared him down, a crooked smile at her lips. "Not even knowing you bedded mortals can change my heart," she informed him. "It takes ten thousand years for me to revoke a decision like this. Ten thousand years for me decide I still wanted you. You could at least do me the courtesy of accepting my choice."

"But _why_?" he asked, weeping. "Ezellë, I don't deserve this! I forsook you—you ought to do the same. Cut me loose, cast me aside!"

"Ten thousand years," she repeated. She shook her head. "No, not even that. I chose you, Kano, and I am no oathbreaker. I hated you, yes, I repudiated your deeds, but I _never_ forsook you, not entirely. Not truly. I am a woman of my word."

She reached into her pocket again, this time drawing out a crumpled piece of paper. In the time since his shocking return, she'd found every letter she'd written in his absence and shredded them to pieces in her maelstrom of emotion. They were half fury, half longing, and nothing she wanted him to know. Those words were written for _her_, to process the end of her marriage, to express her anger and her misery, to mourn the loss of a man she hated that she still loved.

None of them held true any longer. Ezellë kept only one fragment, written in a shaking hand immediately after his flight. Its message was simple, and she thrust it before him, unable to express herself in better words than she had then.

_I will hate him until the end of Arda, and beyond, despite everything he may do and because of it._

But as soon as she had written the words, she'd known they were false; tears dripping from her eyes and blotting the fresh-writ ink, she had struck out the offending word so it read thus:

_I will _ <strike> _hate_ </strike> _ love him until the end of Arda, and beyond, despite everything he may do and because of it._

This was the message she held out to him now. She handed it to him along with her ring; he took it with trembling hands, letting her retrieve his band and slip it back onto her finger. He read the words softly in his musical voice, then looked up at her in wonder.

"I forgive you," Ezellë said. "I forgave you a long time ago. You are still the only man I love, even—even if you have more love in your heart than I knew. I want you, Makalaurë. We can make this work, if we try."

She felt it, then, the moment he understood. He rose from the ground, brushing off his knees, then took her hands in his own. So rough, so scarred, so different—yet still his. Still _hers_.

"I never stopped loving you," he said. "Even when I was with others, when I am with Daeron, I loved you and love you still. I have so many regrets, Ezellë, but you were never one of them."

She kissed him, long and passionate, wrapping her arms around him and feeling the blossom of joy within his heart as their spirits mingled. They stayed like that for a long time, finally reunited in the truest sense.

At last she broke away, still clinging to him with a giddy smile. "I did stop loving you," she confessed, "but I got tired of it, so very quickly. Even when you weren't here, life is more interesting with love."

**Author's Note:**

> Ezellë is one of, if not /the/ first Silm OC I ever created. I owe so much of her conception, and Maglor's characterization, to elvntari's writings on Maglor (although my take on Maglor's wife is much different from theirs). The thing with the rings (and one of them being Nerdanel's) I borrowed specifically from [this story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18107774) and [this chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19740004/chapters/47073478) of a longer story. If you haven't read Em's work, what are you doing??
> 
> I've had Ezellë's story in my mind in its vaguest form for awhile, and Em's writing helped it take shape. I began a fic about Ezellë and Maglor through the ages but realized that I was mostly interested in her reunion scene with Maglor. I incorporated her in my fic ATATYA and that story convinced me I needed to come back to this idea.
> 
> Ezellë's name means "green," and her mother-name Tecnyarindë means "writer." Thanks as always to [RealElvish.net](https://realelvish.net) for all the names I could need, and more!
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting!  
You can find me on tumblr [@arofili](http://arofili.tumblr.com/), and check out the [Finwëan Ladies Week blog](http://finweanladiesweek.tumblr.com/) too!


End file.
